Faculty Forum Online: Privacy in the Digital Realm
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For most Americans, handheld computing and smart phones are a daily necessity and have helped create a world of near-constant communication.One consequence of this interconnected society is privacy—or the lack thereof. Recent headlines about mass surveillance have highlighted problems with the infrastructure of virtual space.
In the November 2013 Faculty Forum Online, Professor Hal Abelson PhD ’73 discussed the challenges of digital privacy, how the flow of open information can be globally cultivated, and the cultural and political disruptions caused by the information explosion.
Following his comments, Abelson took live questions from the worldwide MIT community. Enjoy a sample or watch the full webcast then continue the discussion in the comments below.
Is online shopping dangerous?
About Hal Abelson PhD ’73
Harold (Hal) Abelson is the MIT Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is a cochair of the MIT Council on Educational Technology, which oversees MIT's strategic educational technology activities and investments, and helps lead Institute initiatives such as MIT OpenCourseWare and DSpace.
A longtime leader in using computation as a conceptual framework in teaching, Abelson is a founding director of Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the Free Software Foundation, and a former director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. He helped develop the MIT App Inventor, a web-based system that allows non-developers to design and create mobile applications.
From 2009-2010, Abelson was a visiting faculty member at Google. In addition to his doctorate in mathematics from MIT, he holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University.
Related
“Q & A with Hal Abelson,” Research at Google “Hal Abelson Q & A,” Code Quarterly: The Hackademic Journal “MIT's glorious nerd heritage must not be forgotten,” The Tech, January 1990 Media Lab biography: Hal Abelson
About Faculty Forum Online
Eight times per season, the Faculty Forum Online presents compelling interviews with faculty on timely and relevant topics. Viewers watch and participate in live 30-minute interviews via interactive chat. Since its inception in 2011, archival editions of these programs have been viewed more than 50,000 times.
Comments
David Bivins
Thu, 11/21/2013 10:17pm
I appreciated this fine and concise discussion of many privacy issues. But I couldn't hear all of it.
My comment/complaint is on the production -- the audio was very low at the start, I could barely hear anything, and later on the moderator was much louder than Prof. Abelson, I had to lower volume when she spoke and raise it when he spoke. I use my laptop's audio, it usually was not adequate to hear him comfortably. However, in almost all online uses I have no problem hearing the audio with the laptop.
Obviously, the broadcast audio level was made louder a few minutes after the opening. The continuing problem was that the mike(s) must have been at different distances from the two speakers, plus Prof. Abelson spoke more softly.
These are pretty simple tech problems that should be fixed in future Q&A dialogs such as this one.
Anon
Tue, 11/19/2013 3:58pm
Why isn't anonymous commenting enabled?